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Dec 2006

Kalam calls for synergy between civil and military aviation

     Bangalore: Calling for a National Aerospace Policy, President A P J Abdul Kalam on Monday said that it is essential to create a 'synergy' in the aviation sector by integrating the strengths of both the civil and military aviation sectors. "With this national strength and opportunity for larger demand in aerospace systems and export potential, a large business for industries is in front of us. It is essential that this strength is integrated into a National Aeronautics Policy for integrating the strengths of both civil and military aviation sectors to bring synergy in the aviation sector," said Kalam in his inaugural address to the International Conference on Trends in Product Life Cycle, Modelling, and Simulation and Synthesis (PLMSS-2006). Highlighting the fact that a Rupees 20,000 crores aerospace infrastructure was already in place, Kalam said implementation of the aerospace policy would help in ushering "an era of high technology and a high skill industry environment". It would also help in asset generation along with wealth and employment for many youth in the country, he added. "Chairman ISRO informed me that the formulation of National Aerospace Policy is in an advance stage of approval. I will also try to accelerate it further," Kalam added. He also outlined that apart from formulating the National Aerospace Policy, the country's aviation sector should focus on building five aerospace systems such as, 150 seater passenger jet, supersonic unmanned combat aircraft, hypersonic reusable missile, hyperplane and planetary missions including manned missions for energy and water. Kalam expressed confidence that the country could launch such missions since it has a vast infrastructure and human resources in the aerospace sector. "India definitely can launch such missions with international partnership. This would require a virtual collaborative platform not only among the functional disciplines but also among the participating institutions in the country and abroad", Kalam said. He also stressed on the need of creating a "Virtual Collaborative Platform for Aerospace systems" with the active participation from different governmental organisations specialising in aviation sector like Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Defence Research Development Organisation (DRCO) and their collaboration with other scientific laboratories and work centres.
-Dec 18, 2006